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Mexican authorities are searching for a content creator with ties to the United States after a video went viral this week showing a person being abducted at gunpoint in broad daylight in the Mexican state of Sinaloa.
Footage allegedly taken by the camera in her Tesla, a light purple Cybertruck, appears to show the moment Nicole “La Nicolette” Pardo is violently forced into another car by several armed men.
The Sinaloa attorney general’s office issued a missing person bulletin and said Pardo was last seen on January 20 in the Isla Musara neighborhood of Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state in northwestern Mexico.
CNN has located footage of an apparent kidnapping in the same area.
CNN has contacted the Sinaloa State Attorney General’s Office to confirm the authenticity of the video and whether it is part of the investigation and is awaiting a response.
Mexico’s Security Secretary Omar García Halfucci said Thursday that they were tracking the vehicle believed to have been involved in Pardo’s disappearance, and that state authorities immediately reported the incident to the federal government. “We will provide detailed information until she recovers,” Halfucci said at President Claudia Sheinbaum’s daily press conference.
According to what appears to be her Instagram account, the young woman splits her time between Culiacan and Phoenix, Arizona. Public records show she has an address in Phoenix.
CNN has reached out to Phoenix police for comment.
A State Department spokesperson said they were aware of reports about the situation and were actively monitoring it.
The spokesperson did not specifically confirm whether Pardo was a U.S. citizen, but said, “There is no higher priority for the Trump Administration than the safety and security of the American people, and the State Department stands ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance to American citizens in need abroad.”
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office told CNN that Mexican authorities have not offered to cooperate with the investigation, but “we stand ready to assist in any way possible.”
Pardo is 20 years old, according to the Sinaloa state attorney general’s office. She is a prominent voice online, amassing over 180,000 followers on Instagram and over 145,000 followers on TikTok. She also has a YouTube channel and an OnlyFans account.
Her posts frequently show aspects of her personal life, such as purchasing luxury cars, driving routes through the country roads and natural areas of southern Culiacan, and participating in local events such as saladasos.
She is featured in the 2022 Corridor song “La Muchacha del Salado” recorded by Grupo Arriesgado, which has accumulated over 27 million views on YouTube.
La Nicolette’s disappearance comes amid escalating violence against women in Sinaloa and across Mexico. The state will see 72 murders in 2025, the highest number in seven years and more than double the 31 recorded in 2024, according to official statistics from the Attorney General’s Office.
More broadly, 7,000 of the 132,000 disappearances reported across Mexico since the first case was recorded in 1952 occurred in Sinaloa state, according to the national registry.
